On the Saturday September 12 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet best-selling author Anita Rau Badami. an acclaimed Indian-Canadian novelist whose work explores family bonds, cultural identity, and the immigrant experience spanning India and Canada.  She moved to Canada in 1991 and is best known for novels including the bestselling Tamarind Mem, the award-winning The Hero’s Walk, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, and Tell It to the Trees.  A recipient of the Marian Engel Award, she lives in Montreal, which is the backdrop for her latest novel Asha In Her Garden. It’s the story of Asha Mohan, an Indian immigrant in Montreal whose backyard garden (shaded by a beloved old maple tree) has long been her personal sanctuary amid family struggles and daily life.  As the aging tree must finally be cut down, Asha reflects on a violent incident from twenty years earlier, an earlier tragedy in India that prompted her family’s move to Canada, and the complexities of her relationships, finding new clarity about her life.

Then we’ll meet meet award-winning composer, sound designer, and classical music provocateur Matthew Reid. Best known for a decade as music director and composer for The Second City, he has created scores for film, television, theatre, games, and live performance. His ambitious piano cycle Moods of Limited Transposition explores emotion through innovative harmonic language across a planned 36 short works.

Finally, we spend some time with Mundy McLaughlin, a Canadian author, former labour and human rights lawyer, and artist. Her debut novel, Blue Life, is a coming-of-age story set against the vibrant, gritty art, punk, and club scenes of late-1970s New York City and New Jersey.